Was David Miliband expected to join rebellion?

Those involved in organising the attempt to unseat the PM believed that up to half a dozen Cabinet ministers would follow their lead.

Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt insist that they had no direct contact with any member of the Cabinet but one rebel who was involved in planning their revolt told me: “We wanted to create a storm. Our purpose was to create the space for the Cabinet to act. They bottled it.”

Sources named the potential Cabinet rebels as Harriet Harman, David Miliband, Bob Ainsworth, Jack Straw, Jim Murphy and Douglas Alexander. There is no suggestion or evidence that any of those named was involved in planning today’s coup attempt. Indeed they all issued statements criticising it. The rebels believed, however, that each of the six named ministers agreed with their view that a change of party leader was necessary and would act accordingly.

I can only assume that the South Shields MP and Foreign Secretary saw a banana skin lying on the slippery ice of Westminster! Last June it took only half an hour for David Miliband to issue a statement of support for Gordon Brown after the intervention of Lord Mandelson, yesterday it took almost seven hours for him to issue a statement that didn’t even include the Prime Minister’s name, perhaps Miliband and a few others are resigned to a Labour defeat at the next election and see the aftermath as the better time to supplant Brown as leader of the Labour Party in Opposition?

One Response

Will it not be an act of madness to get rid of Brown so late in the game?.Nulabor has a way of self destructing.Maybe the latest crisis is a denouement of what is to come.Expect a landslide for the Tories at the next general Elections.Labor will be sent to the political wilderness for a long time to come.